London’s iconic Battersea Power Station, the largest brick building in Europe and long elusive site of urban development, went into default yesterday, the Guardian reported. Battersea, on the Thames, is a Gotham City version of Philadelphia Electric Company’s elegant concrete palazzos designed by John Windrim–among them the Delaware Station at Penn Treaty Park and Richmond Station, three miles up river. Battersea once supplied a fifth of London’s power.

But without a roof, Battersea, which can be had for $780 million, is in danger of becoming a very expensive shell.

Like Battersea, the empty Delaware and Richmond generating stations were built into the river bank. Their power, and grace, was meant to be observed from afar.

PE, explains Aaron Wunsch, a lecturer in architectural history in the graduate program in historic preservation at Penn Design, wanted to safeguard its monopoly through civic engagement and a strong–looming, intrinsic–corporate image. For this the company employed architecture. “While PE’s substations remained quietly contextual,” writes Wunsch in the essay “Palazzos of Power: Early Central Stations of the Philadelphia Electric Company,” “its power plants became boldly theatrical. Wrapping modern equipment in Roman garb, they rationalized materials handling, improved worker safety, and stressed comfort as well as control.”

The stations, writes Wunsch, “are stalwart, eye-catching, and strange.” Like Battersea, but better.

What they aren’t is protected by law like Battersea. Richmond Generating Station was nominated for the Philadelphia Historic Register, but the Historical Commission voted against putting it on the list after current owner Exelon flexed some political muscle. Battersea sits on an incredibly valuable piece of real estate, and its protected status is all that has kept the wrecking ball at bay. Richmond most likely still stands because demolition would be incredibly expensive, and present owner Exelon may not know what else to do with the power station.

While a patch of Delaware riverfront in the shadow of the Betsy Ross bridge in unlikely to command $780 million, redevelopment isn’t completely unthinkable. A Windrim-designed power plant in Chester, PA from the same era was turned into offices in 2001. One option that’s worth exploring is turning it into a museum like Eastern State Penitentiary-what’s called a “stabilized ruin.” The photographer Vincent Feldman calls Richmond Generating Philadelphia’s own Baths of Caracalla. If we have built anything in America to rival the splendor of ancient Rome, it’s the Richmond Generating Station. Let’s hope this “Palazzo of Power” is still around to inspire awe and wonder two millennia from now.

Richmond Generating Station | Photo: Peter Woodall

Peter Woodall contributed to this article.

About the author

Hidden City co-editor Nathaniel Popkin’s latest book is the novel Lion and Leopard (The Head and The Hand Press). He is also the author of Song of the City (Four Walls Eight Windows/Basic Books) and The Possible City (Camino Books). He is senior writer and script editor of the Emmy-winning documentary series “Philadelphia: The Great Experiment” and the fiction review editor of Cleaver Magazine. Popkin's literary criticism appears in the Wall Street Journal, Public Books, The Kenyon Review, and The Millions. He is writer-in-residence of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

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